MKAD is the name of the
beltway
A ring road (also known as circular road, beltline, beltway, circumferential (high)way, loop, bypass or orbital) is a road or a series of connected roads encircling a town, city, or country. The most common purpose of a ring road is to assist i ...
that goes around
Minsk
Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the admi ...
,
Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...
. The name is an abbreviation that means Minsk Beltway ( be, Мінская кальцавая аўтамабільная дарога, russian: Минская кольцевая автомобильная дорога). The 56.2 km road straddles the Minsk
city limits
City limits or city boundaries refer to the defined boundary or border of a city. The area within the city limit can be called the city proper. Town limit/boundary and village limit/boundary apply to towns and villages. Similarly, corporate limi ...
.
History
Early history
The road was built between 1956 and 1963. In the beginning the road had just one lane in each direction and the width of the roadway was 7.5 meters. Reconstruction began in 1980. The result was 26.8 km with four lanes with the remaining section, 29.4 km, having two lanes.
Recent developments and current conditions
![M9 Minsk Beltway](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/M9_Minsk_Beltway.jpg)
At the end of the 1990s, the road was used by 16,000-18,000 automobiles daily and had level crossings,
traffic lights
Traffic lights, traffic signals, or stoplights – known also as robots in South Africa are signalling devices positioned at road intersections, pedestrian crossings, and other locations in order to control flows of traffic.
Traffic light ...
and
bus
A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...
stops. Thus, on August 7, 2001, President
Alexander Lukashenko
Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko (as transliterated from Russian language, Russian; also transliterated from Belarusian language, Belarusian as Alyaksand(a)r Ryhoravich Lukashenka;, ; rus, Александр Григорьевич Лука ...
ordered its reconstruction, with the completion due by November 2002.
The decision was met with controversy as the route passed through
Kurapaty
Kurapaty ( be, Курапаты, ) is a wooded area on the outskirts of Minsk, Belarus, in which a vast number of people were executed between 1937 and 1941 during the Great Purge by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD.
The exact count of victi ...
, north of Minsk, site of a
mass grave
A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of execution, although an exact ...
of victims of the
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
secret police
Secret police (or political police) are intelligence, security or police agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, religious, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of a ...
, the
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
, during the
Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
of 1937-1941. Estimates of those murdered there range into the hundreds of thousands, but the site has not been properly investigated or bodies exhumed. Protesters accused Lukashenko, who does not recognize the Kurapaty case and never mentions it in public, of planning to destroy the site and build over the graves of its victims in a deliberate attempt to cover over a Soviet
crime against humanity
Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the c ...
. In 2001, protesters from the
Belarusian Popular Front
The Belarusian Popular Front "Revival" (BPF, be, Беларускі Народны Фронт "Адраджэньне", БНФ; ''Biełaruski Narodny Front "Adradžeńnie"'', ''BNF'') was a social and political movement in Belarus in the late 1 ...
,
Zubr Zubr may refer to:
*Żubr or Zubr, the name in several Slavic languages for the wisent or European bison (''Bison bonasus'')
*Zubr (political organization), a civic youth organization in Belarus
*''Zubr'', a novel by Daniil Granin
* TOZ-55 "Zubr", a ...
and smaller organizations, occupied the site and sat out a bitter winter in tents. Despite international attention, they were unable to stop the construction.
The rebuilt road opened on November 7, 2002. MKAD has come closer to resembling a
freeway
A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms ...
, due to the elimination of traffic lights, the prohibition of left turns at grade level, and the installation of
streetlights
A street light, light pole, lamp pole, lamppost, street lamp, light standard, or lamp standard is a raised source of light on the edge of a road or path. Similar lights may be found on a railway platform. When urban electric power distribution ...
along its entire route. It has a total of six lanes, a width of 29 meters, and a capacity of 85,000 vehicles per day. The road was designed to have a 120 km/h
speed limit
Speed limits on road traffic, as used in most countries, set the legal maximum speed at which vehicles may travel on a given stretch of road. Speed limits are generally indicated on a traffic sign reflecting the maximum permitted speed - expres ...
, though at present the limit is 90 km/h. This restriction is due to frequent accidents involving people crossing in undesignated places, despite the fact that there are more than 50 pedestrian crossings and barriers on both sides of the road designed to prevent pedestrian intrusion.
There are three weight stations along the road. The roadway has implanted devices that measure surface condition,
dewpoint
The dew point is the temperature to which air must be cooled to become saturated with water vapor, assuming constant air pressure and water content. When cooled below the dew point, moisture capacity is reduced and airborne water vapor will cond ...
, wind speed and direction, visibility, air temperature and other parameters. This information is transmitted to the central office, where officials can decide whether to treat the road surface to prevent it from freezing. The devices also measure the speed and frequency of road traffic. There are also electronic
signboards
Signage is the design or use of signs and symbols to communicate a message. A signage also means signs ''collectively'' or being considered as a group. The term ''signage'' is documented to have been popularized in 1975 to 1980.
Signs are any ...
with information for motorists.
Reconstruction required the laying of 680 tons of asphalt
concrete
Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wi ...
, the installation of 100 km of pedestrian barrier and 2.4 km of sound barrier, and the construction of 24
interchanges
Interchange may refer to:
Transport
* Interchange (road), a collection of ramps, exits, and entrances between two or more highways
* Interchange (freight rail), the transfer of freight cars between railroad companies
* Interchange station, a rai ...
, 30 bridges and viaducts, 6 above-ground pedestrian crossings and 16 underground pedestrian crossings.
As of 2006, the road was used by 50,000 vehicles a day. 93.4% of the vehicles were cars and vans, 5.8% were trucks and 0.8% were buses. Actual speeds were as follows:
*below 70 km/h: 13.3% of vehicles
*between 70 and 90 km/h: 53.4%
*above 90 km/h: 33.3%
References
External links
Article and map about the highways around Minsk
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mkad (Minsk)
Ring roads
Roads in Belarus
Transport in Minsk